


Pieces of People We Keep Inside Our Hearts

by bordello_blues



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: First Kiss, Fluff, Kissing, M/M, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-07
Updated: 2016-01-07
Packaged: 2018-05-12 08:41:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5660053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bordello_blues/pseuds/bordello_blues
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It starts with a warm flare of something unidentifiable behind Finn's ribs and his heart hammering away wildly, like it's forgotten it's meant to stay in his chest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pieces of People We Keep Inside Our Hearts

**Author's Note:**

> Ugh. I just have all the Stormpilot feels. All. Of. Them. They speak to me. I'm also doing all my writing in my phone's notes, and publishing from it, so I apologize for formatting issues that may occur. But seriously. 
> 
> These two. These. Two. 
> 
> This was supposed to be about Finn being a pack rat, but that didn't happen. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ 
> 
> Many thanks to [resurrection_en_menthe](http://archiveofourown.org/users/resurrection_en_menthe) for the beta.
> 
> Title from The Rapture's "Pieces of the People We Love".

It starts rather innocuously, Finn thinks, with Poe's jacket. It starts when he sees Poe alive, again--against all odds--when Poe tells him to keep it, that it suits him. It starts with a warm flare of something unidentifiable behind Finn's ribs and his heart hammering away wildly, like it's forgotten it's meant to stay in his chest. There's a sense of owning, of having, of an item being really and truly his--it's not a feeling that he's ever had before. Finn covets it, wraps it up carefully and tucks it away to cherish later. And maybe, just maybe, if he imagines a hint of Poe's jet-fuel-and-engine-oil scent embedded in the collar beneath a patina of his own sweat and the dust of Jakku, that's okay, too.

  
It starts innocuously, with the jacket, but Finn soon finds himself picking up odds and ends: rocks and bits of scrap, anything that strikes his fancy or catches his eye, and tucking them away into his pockets. For further perusal, he thinks, though that's not quite the case. Life with the First Order, as far away as it sometimes seems, was only a few months back, and he remembers the feeling of it: a cog in the machine, one senseless part of a whole, following because it was all he could do. He knew nothing else. Until Jakku, until Poe, until the sudden understanding that he could escape, that he could do something more, that he could _be_ something more. And maybe all he needed was a pilot, but that was enough. That the pilot had been Poe, well... Finn wears the jacket, as a memorial first, then later as an acknowledgment.

  
When Poe--generous, gorgeous, passionate _Poe_ \--leads him down to Command and speaks on his behalf... Maybe that sense of owning, of belonging, is only partially about the jacket and more about the man himself.

  
Besides Rey's, Poe's is the only easy smile aimed at him. But slowly, slowly, after he wakes from his brief battle with Kylo Ren, slowly, as he learns to walk again, Finn learns Jess' smile and Snap's. He sees the moment that they turn from apprehension, to grudging acceptance, to respect; and while Poe's smile is warmest, suddenly he's not Finn's only friend on D'Qar any more.

  
It should make Finn feel better, this sense of finally being accepted, of not being called "First Order lapdog" behind his back, if it weren't for the way he can't tear his eyes away from the quirk of Poe's lips. The way Poe's smile shines brightest in any given space, drawing Finn in so hard and fast--like he's just hit light speed from a dead stop again--that something flutters back behind his ribs and leaves him reeling, light-headed. There must be something wrong with him, a complication of the coma or a side-effect of the meds he's still on, and he goes to medical with the issue. Turns out it's difficult to put into words. Finn stumbles over his own tongue and bumbles haltingly through a summarization of his symptoms. His doctor, the one who insists on weekly check-ups and salves and physiotherapy, even though Finn's walking and training and learning his way around a cockpit already; his doctor, usually stoic and unflappable, sends Finn away with a bemused look on her face and an updated PT schedule. It is, at the very least, unhelpful; at most a little bit insulting. Unfortunately, the moment of weakness on Jakku aside, Finn is still very good at following orders.

  
So he continues to slog through physio, and has his new friends rubbing salve into the spots on his back he can't reach on his own. Only Poe's hands feel too hot, though; not the burning-aching-charring-flesh hurt of lightsabers, or the pulling-muscle-deep-twinge of working himself too hard with the vibroblade, but a yearning kind of fire roaring in his veins and oddly, simultaneously sending goosebumps prickling down his arms. Like he wants... Well, Finn doesn't know what it is he wants _exactly_. Except that maybe, just maybe, he wouldn't mind Poe's hands wandering away from the scar.

  
They were meant to train this out of him in the First Order; but it seems that one initial crack in his conditioning has widened into a rift. Finn learns, through Rey first, what it means to love. Even if he doesn't initially know the word for the nearly manic need he feels to keep her safe. Alive. Happy. At his side. Beyond those first moments of individual awareness in the TIE fighter, Finn never felt happier than he did with her hand in his.

  
Until D'Qar.

  
Until he wakes up to warm amber eyes behind dusky, sleepless bruises and a smile so wide he can feel himself drowning in it, inasmuch as he's not drowning in pain.

  
Until Poe holds him up for the first of many unsteady stumbles around the ward and mumbles encouragements in his ear.

  
The First Order never taught him any of this. They taught him fear and pain and hate, but not the triumphant feeling of standing on his own two feet again, or the empty ache when he catches General Organa crying, head in her hands (he backs away from that one uncertainly, though all he wants is to wrap her in his arms. Hugs, Finn has learned, are _amazing_.). And when Poe grabs him by the lapels of a barely, but meticulously, mended jacket and kisses him for the first time, the both of them mission-drunk and giddy on adrenaline, Finn can't believe the First Order never bothered.

  
He knows finally, instinctively, this is what he's been craving: palms branding his jaw, the hot-wet slide of lips and tongue, later yet Poe pressing Finn back into a wall with a low groan, fingers searing ownership into Finn's hips.

  
It starts innocuously with the jacket. It ends in wayward, tangled curls tickling at his nose and Poe whispering saccharine praise into the juncture of Finn's neck.

  
They never taught him any of this, and it's a blessing. He may have stayed loyal if they had.


End file.
